I am a former African ruler

I strange note from me, as for once, it’s not me being an idiot!

I’m sure that everyone gets phishing emails from time to time, people pretending to be an former African leader or Chinese banker or the lawyer of a rich recently-deceased man with no traceable relatives, even the National Lottery. They are attempts to get people’s details for identity theft and nobody takes them seriously.

Attention:
How are you today, hope all is well with you and your family?

You may not understand why this mail came to you.We have been having a
meeting for the passed 7 months which ended 2 days ago with the secretary to
the UNITED NATIONS.This email is to all the people that have been scammed in
any part of the world, the UNITED NATIONS have agreed to compensate them
with the sum of US$ 500,000.00 This includes every foriegn contractors that
may have not received their contract sum, and people that have had an
unfinished transaction or international businesses that failed due to
Government probelms etc.

You are advised to contact Mr. Jim Ovia of ZENITH BANK NIGERIA PLC, as he is
our representative in Nigeria, contact him immediately for your Cheque/
International Bank Draft of USD$ 500,000.00
This funds are in a Bank Draft for security purpose ok? so he will send it to
you and you can clear it in any bank of your choice.

Thanks and God bless you and your family.Hoping to hear from you as soon as
you cash your Bank Draft. Making the world a better place

Best Regards,
Mr. Kofi Annan
Former Secretary (UNITED NATIONS).

There are several things that are ridiculous about this message; the grammatical errors, alone are enough to make me chuckle and why would the former Secretary be sending this email? Also why is the UN Bank now in Nigeria, and why does the representative of the Nigerian bank use a Yahoo account based out of Hong Kong? I also like the friendly “how are you today” opening, you don’t really expect an international organisation to exchange pleasantries.

What I find most bizarre is the implausible excuse that’s given in the scam; the UN has decided to compensate people who have been scammed. This is trying to scam people who have already been scammed, surely this group would be the “once bitten, twice shy” types… if they do fall for it again, one wonders how they remember to breath